


build a home inside your ribs

by bee_kind



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, rockatoasty if you squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_kind/pseuds/bee_kind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, five times max leaves and one time toast goes with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so, despite being a former tumblr roleplayer of toast the knowing and an avid fic reader, i saw mad max: fury road for the first time tonight, and it was more than i believed or expected it to be.

She saw him leave and she followed him, standing just outside the ring of rock that marked the citadel's entrance and watching him pack his gear in, fuel up, and make sure, for the fortieth time, that everything was running properly. It’s only when he’s satisfied that he cast a curious look back over his shoulder at her, stepping to the side, the hint of a question on the hard lines of his face. She shakes her head no, and he nods, opening the driver’s door and sliding in. He drives off without a backward glance and she watches until he disappears over the horizon.   
  
The first time Max leaves, Toast does not go with him, and when he’s finally out of view, she returns to the Citadel and sleeps for the first night not worrying if her sisters will be gone when she wakes up. She has Furiosa to thank for that. Furiosa and Max and Angharad.   
  
Days wear on, and it hurts a little less every time she thinks of her sister and the space she left behind. The Dag plants, Capable helps reunite the War Pups with their parents, Cheedo teaches the Wretched how to read and Toast counts bullets. Counts bullets, because she knows that this hard won peace is only temporary and news will spread like dust storms that the Immortan is dead. She leaves peace to her sisters. She and Furiosa will make war on their own. The others dream of water flowing freely and she dreams of blood doing the same. She has to make sure it isn’t her people’s running in the heavily trodden pathways of the citadel. She has to make sure they’re safe.   
  
The first time Max comes back, he comes back walking with a burn on his right shoulder and dry-mouthed. He’d lost his ride and supplies some time in the eight cycles he’d been gone for. She doesn’t ask, none of them do. The Dag makes a salve for his burns, Capable cuts his hair, Cheedo speaks to him, talks to him about what he’s missed  and tries to get him to talk back, to do something more than grunt and mumble. Toast stands on the outskirts and waits until one by one they leave him be and she goes to him. She sits between his legs and holds his hands. He flinches away from her at first, but she holds him fast. He doesn’t like to be touched and she doesn’t either, but god damn it -she thinks, placing both of her hands over one of his calloused own- god, damn it someone has to bring him back.   
  
“You’re back now, Max.” He looks at her with something like recognition and listens. “You’re back, now.” He’s has been gone for almost a full revolution and she knew what those wastelands could do. What the endless sea of brown on tan on yellow could do to a mind. His mind was intact, but only barely and the feral he was when they met is clawing at the edges of him, fraying what strides they made. Toast isn’t foolish. She doesn’t tell him that everything’s okay, because she’s not quite certain it is. From the look in his eyes, he isn’t either. He dips his head.   
  
“ ‘m back.”


	2. Chapter 2

The second time Max leaves, it’s early morning, before the sands have had a chance to bake. It’s Furiosa who sends him off this time; she can see them walking toward the outskirts of the citadel, him with a pack slung over his shoulder, her with her head down, mouth moving slowly. She’s telling him he can stay. Telling him he  _ can _ , providing an option, not trying to hold him down. For the briefest of moments, Toast allows herself to accept the sliver of hope that he’ll say yes, that together they could-   
  
She kills it and turns away before she can watch him shake his head and climb into a dusty pursuit vehicle and disappear in a cloud of sand and words unspoken.    
  
  
It’s six cycles before she hears the hum of an approaching vehicle and a small watchboy scrambles up to the gardens where she’s helping the Dag tend crops to tell them that the Road Warrior’s vehicle has been spotted only a click outside the citadel walls. Her hands pause over a bud on the cusp of blooming and her sister looks at her out of the corner of blue eyes round as hubcaps. She thanks the watchboy for alerting them and contemplates as he runs away why they never call him Max. Then she remembered that he’d killed their god and she thought maybe he didn’t need a name, that sometimes when people did something big enough they became ideas. Road Warrior suited him just fine.   
  
The Dag rises with her boy on her hip and dirt up her arms and walks, barefooted toward the stairs that will let her down into the main body of the citadel.   
  
“Where are you going?”

“Someone has tell him.”   
  
“Tell him what?”   
  
“That the wilds can't get in here.”    
  
Toast gives a sharp shake of her head, and she traces the edge of the leaf with hesitant fingers, half-worried hands used to loading weapons wouldn’t know how to build life.    
  
“Furiosa will comfort him.”    
  
“Furiosa is a sandstorm.” She grunts at that. Their leader, Furiosa the Undying, Furiosa the Chromefist, who was a woman built of blood and iron, understood much but spoke little.    
  
“And I’m not?”   
  
“You’re the promise of one.” Her sister answers, eyes going hazy and drifting. Sometimes Toast thinks she knows more than she lets on; that she sees the sky burning, knows something deep and ungraspable is buried beneath the sand, feels the thrumming of the earth below them. “And the silence after.” Toast doesn’t answer her, just rises and pulls her scarf over her head and follows her down into the body of the rock.

By the time they reach the ground level, Max is there with young watchboys swarming around his legs all grasping for something small with black and white patches and a long face. Max stoops and scoops the agitated creature into his arms, patient even as a dozens small hands grasp at his clothes and tug at his jacket. 

“What is that?”

“Dog.” he replies simply as if any of them have any idea what dog means.    
  
A rather brave watchboy tugs at the Road Warrior’s arm, yanking it down so he can get a better look at the furry thing writhing with it’s tongue out in the man’s arms. “Is Dog for eating?”  Max gives a too quick shake of his head and his eyes meet hers across the crowd. He squints, presses his lips together a nods, as much of a hello as he was accustomed to giving. 

  
“Well then what is it for?” A small watchboy whines.   
  
“Dogs,” said Toast the Knowing, drawing the attention of the crowd, “eat loneliness.” 


End file.
